Brazilian Portuguese
Portuguese that keeps up with you.
Four courses take you from your first sentence to real conversation. Everything around them — flashcards, graded stories, audio, someone to talk to — is generated at your exact level and rewritten as you improve. Nothing to outgrow.
Generated for you, in real time
What nobody tells you
You'll read it long before you hear it.
Portuguese on the page is friendlier than it has any right to be. Portuguese out loud is a different language — nasal, clipped, with whole syllables that dissolve. That gap is the real shape of learning this language, and pretending it isn't there is why so many people quit in month three.
The long words are already yours
Roughly sixty percent of English vocabulary came in from Latin and French, and those are precisely the words Portuguese kept. Information becomes informação, university becomes universidade, possible becomes possível, famous becomes famoso. Four endings and you can guess thousands of words.
The short words are the strangers
Pai is father. Pé is foot. Peixe is fish. They look like nothing, and there's a reason: the everyday core of English is Germanic, not Latin, so the words you use most are the ones that drifted furthest. The gift is real, but it's front-loaded onto the formal half.
Your mouth already knows three of the hard sounds
The carioca R is the h of «hat» — same sound, different letter. The final l that turns into a u is the dark l you already say in «milk». And the nasal vowels are closer to the vowel in «song» than to anything Spanish has. You are not starting from zero on the ear; you're starting from a misfiled memory.
Words you already own
Four endings, thousands of words
This is the single most useful thing to learn in your first week. English and Portuguese inherited the same Latin word stock, and the endings map onto each other so regularly that you can convert on the fly. Read these before you've studied anything.
That last one is the warning attached to the gift. Puxe is «pull» and empurre is «push», which is the exact reverse of what an English speaker assumes, and it is written on every door in Brazil.
- informaçãoin-for-ma-SÃUNinformation — every ‑tion becomes ‑ção
- universidadeu-ni-ver-si-DA-djiuniversity — every ‑ty becomes ‑dade
- possívelpo-SÍ-vewpossible — every ‑ble becomes ‑vel
- famosofa-MO-zufamous — every ‑ous becomes ‑oso
- puxePU-shipull — the sign on the door, and it is not «push»
The full path
Four courses, from your first sentence to conversation
One continuous story with the same characters from the first lesson to the last, anchored to an English ear rather than translated into one.
- 01A1
Portuguese from scratch
First steps: the sound system — where most of the work is — plus ten lessons covering greetings, numbers, ordering, getting around, and the ending rules that hand you thousands of words on day one.
- 02A1 → A2
Portuguese on the move
Your daily life in Portuguese: the city, the house, food, work, plans, and what happened yesterday. The past tenses land here, and so does the difference between ser and estar.
- 03B1
Portuguese in depth
Opinions, hypotheses and stories. Saying what you would do, what you hope happens, and what you had already done — the tenses that let you narrate instead of report.
- 04B1+
Portuguese in flight
Argue and sound local: the gíria of São Paulo and Rio, softening and sharpening what you say, and the difference between correct Portuguese and Portuguese that sounds like a person.
Already speak some Portuguese?
Reading fine, lost when they talk.
This is the most common shape of Portuguese among English speakers, and it is not a discipline problem. Written Portuguese hands you its Latin vocabulary immediately. Spoken Brazilian Portuguese swallows unstressed syllables, nasalises the ends of words and runs everything together, so your reading races ahead and your ear never catches up on its own.
It tells you which skill is lagging
The placement test measures vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening and speaking separately instead of giving you one number. With Portuguese it nearly always finds the same gap — reading far ahead of listening — and that is what tells you where your time should go.
There is no last level
The material isn't drawn from a catalogue that runs out; it is generated for you. As your profile climbs, the content climbs with it, all the way to C2. There is no final lesson to reach.
Ear time, on demand
Audio capsules and voice conversation at your exact level, whenever you want, for as long as you want. Listening is the skill that only responds to volume, and it is the one a textbook cannot give you.
What's included
Everything else is in Portuguese too
The courses are the backbone. Around them, Lemma generates new material at your exact level, every day, without running out.
Decks
The core of vocabulary. Flashcards by level and topic, with spaced repetition that shows you each word right before you'd forget it. Inside every card: an explanation in your language, examples, and answers — generated on the spot.
Spaced repetition + AIQuick Practice
Short readings and audio capsules, generated instantly, that mix the vocabulary you've already studied with new words to challenge you. Calibrated to your exact level.
Reading and listeningLibrary
Eight-chapter short novels, written by AI at your level, with cover art and an immersive reader. Pick the genre and the world. You'll never run out of something to read made just for you.
Immersive readingPartners
Create partners with different personalities and practice by text or voice. Real conversation that sharpens your expression — and gives Lemma a precise read on your progress.
Text and voice conversationWhy Lemma
This is not a streak app
The content is generated for you, not for everyone
A streak app hands you the same lesson it hands a million other people. Lemma measures where you actually are — six skills, separately — and starts there.
Spaced repetition, not a daily quota
Every card comes back right before you'd forget it. That timing is what makes it stick. You're building memory here, not a streak — miss a day and you've lost a day, nothing more.
Built for the part after the beginning
Beginner Portuguese is a solved problem and the internet is full of it. The gap is everything after that, and it is the part Lemma was designed for: material that stays just above you, for as long as you keep climbing.
Frequently asked
About learning Portuguese with Lemma
Do you teach Brazilian or European Portuguese?
Brazilian. The vocabulary, the audio and the dialogues are all Brazilian — você, ônibus, celular, café da manhã — and the characters are from São Paulo. The two varieties share their writing almost entirely; the real distance between them is in pronunciation and in a few everyday words.
Is Portuguese easy for English speakers?
The reading is easy, faster than most people expect, because the Latin half of English maps onto Portuguese almost mechanically. The listening is genuinely hard, harder than Spanish, because Brazilian Portuguese reduces unstressed vowels and nasalises word endings. Expect your two skills to move at very different speeds — that's normal here, not a sign you're doing it wrong.
Do I need to know Spanish first?
No, and it's worth saying plainly because it comes up constantly. Portuguese is not «Spanish with an accent», and the courses here are built from English, not routed through Spanish. If you do happen to speak Spanish it helps with reading and hurts with pronunciation, which is a trade most people don't expect.
Do I need to know any Portuguese to start?
No. «Portuguese from scratch» begins with the sound system and your first sentences. If you already know some, Lemma runs an adaptive placement test when you sign in and starts you at your real level.
How long does it take to learn Portuguese?
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Portuguese in its easiest category for English speakers — roughly 600 to 750 class hours to professional working proficiency. That figure is full-time intensive study, so treat it as a floor rather than a forecast, but the ranking is solid: this is one of the fastest languages you could pick.
How much does it cost?
Lemma Pro is 9.99 USD a month, or 109.89 USD a year, which works out to a month free. Lemma runs on a weekly usage allowance that resets each week; Pro removes those limits.
Can I study another language besides Portuguese?
Yes. Lemma has ten languages, and with Pro you can carry several at once from the same account, each with its own profile and its own progress.
Do I need to install anything?
No. Lemma runs in the browser on your computer and your phone, and you can pin it to your home screen like an app. You sign in with your Google account.
Say your first sentence today
Sign in with Google. Lemma finds your real level of Portuguese in a few minutes and starts there.
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